


Keepers of the Pride

by Clocketpatch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-28 19:06:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/pseuds/Clocketpatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Romana, in E-space</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keepers of the Pride

**Author's Note:**

> Jjpor has been urging me for months to unanon and post this. It takes place while Romana is in E-space and ties in directly with my other fic 'Walk through the Dust'. Be aware that it's more graphic than my usual fare.
> 
> * * *

  
_The first time it happened, she was cold:_

They were following tracks ground into the fresh mountain snow: a long row of two by two with a chain drag in between. The air was nip, and Romana felt her teeth chattering, but refused to stop. The oxygen-low air rattled in her throat, and the laughing wind threw her hair into a spiral.

Her people were made for cold places, yes, but evolution had run backwards in the Citadel. She had been coddled since childhood, and even the stamina she had gained during her run with the Doctor wasn’t enough to help her in this wasteland. Nor was her coat; a stiff, chaffing thing bought from a trade post at the mountain’s base. It creaked with her every step.

K-9 was no help. Biroc carried the silent tin dog. His casing had iced over, and Romana suspected that moisture had worked into his circuits and then expanded as the temperature dropped. It would be a pain to repair later. She’d do it currently, but the trail was, literally, going cold, and besides that; her fingers were too numb.

Still, she refused to give quarter to the elements. She pressed on, even as the wind sent drifts sliding over the tracks making their pursuit pointless without K-9s scanner to guide them. Then, it started to snow.

The flakes — blue/green from atmospheric algae and methylene — collected along the creases of Romana’s coat and tasted foul where they melted on her lips. She shivered, and felt alone, and felt pointless.

And then, suddenly, warmth came.

“Romana,” Biroc said, “you are cold.”

“We must go on,” she said, pulling against his grip. In her mind’s eye she could see the slaves they were tracking; too thin and mangy, their fur pale from malnutrition. They were cubs mostly, or kittens, or children — the words danced in Romana’s mind and she couldn’t decide which was right as she tried to break away and keep going. She had to save them. That was her purpose.

“And then you would die,” Biroc said. The wind played tricks with his mane, making him seem larger, and smaller, than he was.

He was stronger than her, and warmer. His people were also made for the cold, but they had not been coddled; he pulled her close, and, involuntarily, she dug herself closer. One cheek touched fur; they other rested on K-9’s frosted paneling. All she could smell was ice.

Biroc found an overhung buried in blue/green snow. He laid down his own ratty leather cloak inside the rough shelter to make a bed for her. The cave, if it could be called that, was damp with melted snow, and the wind blew in from the side, but he made it warm, somehow.

He undressed her, taking away her soaked and abrasive leather, until she lay pale, and blonde, and helpless beside him. Naked, as he was. Except that he had fur, and she had only goose-pimpled skin and blonde hair that framed her blue lips. She struggled. The cold had plunged its way into her mind and addled it. She was almost too numb to move, but she still struggled and pleaded, weakly —

“We must save them,” she said, over, and over.

Once, she called him Doctor.

His only reply was to stroke her, softly, like a frightened kitten.

“We will find them,” he told her.

She nuzzled against him, and maybe she understood.

They stayed there, twined together, until the storm subsided and the chill air settled. Until the sun rose and put a glass sheen onto the drifts, making the slope look like a frozen ocean. He held her until her lips were no longer blue like the snow, until pink returned to her flesh. Until she slept.

In the morning, they continued their search, and nothing was said of her weakness.

*

_The second time it happened, he was warm:_

They were in jungle, still hunting the same abused cargo of slaves. The slavers were getting witty in their efforts; jumping time tracks and changing selling points. The heat clung to Romana’s cheek bones. Biroc trudged ahead of her, knocking down a path with his claws. They’d left K-9 at their base camp. He couldn’t navigate this terrain and they needed their arms free for balance, for pushing away vines, for swatting flies.

A cloud of midges swarmed Biroc’s head. Romana could hear him panting. Occasionally he would shake himself in an attempt to be rid of the blood-sucking pests.

Later, that night, she and he lay together in a collapsible nylon tent. There was little room and he took up much of it with his bulk, and then all that was left with his wet-fur tang. Raindrops played against the fly; a constant, irregular tattoo of drip, drip, drop, drip.

Biroc slept poorly, tossing, and panting. His fur was shedding in great clumps from the heat, and bits of it floated in the still, humid air. Some settled on Romana, who slept nude for comfort. It was not desire which drove her to cuddle up into the crock of his arm; nor was it even necessity, for, claustrophobic as the tent was, there was room enough for them both to lie without touching.

Instinct, it was. And compassion. And a debt re-paid as her cool skin touched him and he purred with relief. She stroked his fur, the lines of his face, his whiskers, his cheek. Outside of their tent and their small, fragile bond, the jungle hummed, and the universe, such as it was, turned.

*

_The third and final time, it was death:_

Their fur was charred into ashy spikes; their young faces contorted; their bodies puffed with the gas of decay. Romana and Biroc stood at the door of the ship’s cargo bay. Neither of them cried. They stood silent, stoic, enraged. The ship’s air-conditioning, still ironically running even after all of the vessel’s other major support systems had given out, ruffled Biroc’s mane.

“This was murder,” Romana said. The slavers had set fire to their ship and fled; they had preferred to kill their cargo and their profits than risk Romana setting them free. All of the slavers in E-Space had learned to fear her, and Biroc, and the rebellions that they spread.

They stood awhile, in the ash, and then left in silence.

Romana walked close to Biroc. His fur prickled in her ear. The sky was blue on this world. The clouds were pink. The hills were mild and covered in flowers. It was a beautiful place, and very quiet —

Again it was instinct, and compassion. It was the mad desire to steal life back from the desolation.

It started with them rolling together in the meadow. A flower, white and round like a daisy, stuck over his ear. She picked it, and used its stalk to draw a picture in time. He licked her. His tongue was barbed and she shuddered at its roughness.

They both fell, pole-axed by emotion and primal urges. She bared herself to him. She lifted her pale rear, round as a moonlit night, for him to survey. She was civilization; He was wilderness. Together they were light.

He took the back of her neck gently between his teeth and mounted her. His penis was barbed also, and, though she expected it, Romana cried out. It was not an unpleasant sensation; the barbs were soft, and nibbed. He rocked inside of her. His growls were low; they vibrated from his mouth to her throat. They would succeed, he told her; they could not fail. She believed him.

He smelled like time, and like sex. His semen crackled with altron energy, and, if she closed her eyes, and replaced fur with wool, she could almost pretend he was someone else. She could almost forget the cold, and the heat, and the piles of death.

She could, almost, until she realised that she did not want to; that she had chosen this life, perhaps, but the choice had been given to her by another. And now she would never see that man again.

“This is wrong,” Romana said, pulling away from Biroc. The flowers were crumpled from their union. Biroc looked at her. His old brown eyes were not blue. They were noble: they were the eyes of a lord, of an exile, of a renegade, of a time traveller, but they held no whimsy, no sly wink. There was passion, but little love. He could never understand that; or maybe he could. Slavery had burned so much out of him.

Romana turned her back.

“We should go,” he said, and their was no disappointment in his voice, no regret. “There are others who need our help.”

“Yes,” said Romana.

Then they left.  


* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=34708>


End file.
